T hus, people fundamentally misunderstood the source upon which the poet drew for his work of creation, since the multiplicity of meaning in it is not the result of a preconceived mental construction grafted onto the actual poem it arises directly and spontaneously out of a supra mental inspiration, which at one and the same time penetrates and shines through every level of the soul-the reason, as well as the imagination and the inward ear. However, excuses were made for the poet, and his artistic mastery was even credited with enabling him to bridge over poetically “this scholastic sophistry” about multiple meanings. At a later date, concern with t he Divine Comedy dropped to the level of a purely scientific interest that busied itself with historical connections, or of an esthetic appreciation that no longer bothered about the spiritual sense of the work at all.Īdmittedly, it was known that the verses of the Divine Comedy contained more than just the superficial meaning of the narrative Dante himself pointed this out in several places in his work and also in his Convivio (II, I), where he talks about the multiple meanings of holy scripture, and quite undisguisedly makes the same remarks apply to his own poem the symbolical nature of the work, therefore, could not be overlooked. That he was not really capable of understanding him is apparent from the titanism of his sculpture: if Michelangelo had known the law of symbolism according to which higher realities are reflected in lower ones, his creations, in all their corporeality, would not have attempted to take heaven by storm.)Īt the time of the Renaissance, however, people did at least still debate as to whether Dante had actually seen Heaven and hell or not. How greatly Michelangelo revered Dante can be seen from certain of his own sonnets. Even Michelangelo, though he revered his fellow-Florentine to the highest degree, could no longer understand him. They more or less disappeared with the Renaissance the individualistic mode of thought of this period, tossed to and fro between passion and calculating reason, was already far removed from Dante’s inward-looking spirit. The incomparable greatness of the Divine Comedy shows itself not least in the fact that, in spite of the exceptionally wide range and variety of its influence- it even shaped the language of a nation- its full meaning has seldom been understood.Īlready in Dante’s own lifetime those who ventured out upon the ocean of the spirit in the wake of his ship (Paradiso, II, 1ff) were to remain a relatively small company. From The Essential Burckhardt:The Spiritual Life: Christian
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